CHEATING, LYING...

It seems that our tolerance for cheating and lying is greater than it has ever been.  I came across this disturbing article on the subject of cheating in schools and colleges in today's New York Times, one of only a number of recent similar articles which suggest that cheating is no longer unusual, nor even considered particularly reprehensible by students.  It's no longer an act of desperation, it's the way to get a leg up--or ahead.

It is now pretty much accepted, too, that politicians lie.  They lie, principally and most egregiously, in the advertisements that promote their re-election or attempt to destroy their opponents' re-election bid.  With hundreds of millions of dollars now being spent on producing slick and apparently believable lies for mass consumption, it will be a miracle if any remnant of the truth survives.  The sad truth is that the winner may simply be the better, and better financed, liar.

The argument that "both sides do it" does not wash with me.  Fact checking on the recent convention speeches revealed far more, and far more outrageous lies on one side than the other.  Those "facts" that did not check out on the Democratic side seemed more like misplaced emphases and exaggerations than some of the outright, bold-faced untruths uttered by several of their opponents, particularly in their blatantly fact-challenged "arithmetic".  "Both sides do it" is a rhetorical ploy designed to misdirect and distract.

As for cheating, it seems to have become a routine part of Republican strategy to use the subterfuge of voter fraud to enact legislation intended to do nothing other than discourage or prohibit those who might vote against them from ever reaching the voting booth. A fair election, in a democracy, would be one in which "one person" has "one vote."  This attempted rigging of elections is perfectly aligned with the rigging of the economic game to exploit the poor and the middle classes and further enrich the already rich--the game of which Elizabeth Warren is but the most outspoken and most eloquent critic.  Every American, it would seem to me, knows exactly what is going on.  The rules of the game are set by lobbyists who throw around enough money in Washington to buy whatever it is they need for their corporate clients.

Unless we come to a recognition of this decay in the values of our culture, and unless we somehow find the will to turn it around, we may soon find ourselves in the decline in which those on the right already seem to believe.  The "success" achieved by cheating and lying is built upon unsteady ground.  As we know in California, when the Big One comes, to be built on unsteady ground does note bode well for survival.